R.I.P. Osmond Molarsky, 99 ("The Bigger They Come" with Trina Schart Hyman, 1971)
Lenona
http://www.contracostatimes.com/obituaries/ci_13764460?nclick_check=1
MILL VALLEY, CA — Osmond Molarsky, a well-regarded author of
children's books who laid claim to giving novelist James Michener his
first paid writing job, died Monday in Marin General Hospital after a
recent fall, a week before his 100th birthday.
His far-flung professional life included a 1960s late-night radio talk
show on KNEW in San Francisco and a decades-long series of 16
children's books with titles such as "Song of the Empty Bottles." A
Ross resident since moving from the East Coast in the 1960s, Molarsky
had lived at The Redwoods in Mill Valley since 2002.
Mona Molarsky, of New York, said her uncle's children's books were
among the first to address inner-city life and include black children
as major characters.
"Until that time, very few writers were able to publish on subjects
like that," she said. "I think that was very important what he did."
Step-grandson Jeff Faraday, of Alamo, recalled his grandfather asking
his opinion on kids' lingo "or what kind of toy is hot now" in
crafting his books.
(snip)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=osmond+molarsky+died&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
(more obits)
"I had the idea for Scrappy from observing the antics of my eleven-
year-old granddaughter and some of her friends. And I expect a certain
amount of indignation and violent outcry when the book comes out. But
that's how it seems to go--what I write grows naturally out of where I
happen to be living at the time, and the conditions of my life. When I
lived in a lighthouse in Maine, and was doing a lot of sailing, I
wrote Piper, the Sailboat That Came Back. As a denizen of the inner
city areas of Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, I wrote Song of the
Empty Bottles and The Fearless Leroy. Now Scrappy --a dozen books
later--emerges from Marin County, California, just north of the Golden
Gate, fabled land of redwood hot tubs and peacock feathers and
overprivileged youngsters....
"Probably the most satisfying writing I ever did," Molarsky reflected,
"was published in the Congressional Record--testimony presented by an
environmental group before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands, on
a bill to save from logging 32,000 acres of virgin forest in
California's Sierra Nevada. The bill passed, and the area now is
wilderness, legally exempt from desecration by man. I'm proud of
that."
WRITINGS:
FOR CHILDREN
Piper, the Sailboat That Came Back, New York Graphic Society (Boston,
MA), 1965.
(With Virginia Brown, Billie Phillips, and Jo Paul) Out Jumped
Abraham, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1967.
Song of the Empty Bottles, Henry Z. Walck (New York, NY), 1968.
Right Thumb, Left Thumb, Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA), 1969.
Where the Good Luck Was, Henry Z. Walck, 1970.
The Bigger They Come, Henry Z. Walck, 1971.
Take It or Leave It, Henry Z. Walck, 1971.
Song of the Smoggy Stars, Henry Z. Walck, 1972.
The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, Henry Z. Walck, 1973.
Montalvo Bay, Henry Z. Walck, 1976.
The Fearless Leroy, illustrated by Robert Bartram, Henry Z. Walck,
1977.
Robbery in Right Field, illustrated by Rob Sauber, Henry Z. Walck,
1978.
A Different Ball Game, illustrated by James Zingarelli, Coward, McCann
(New York, NY), 1979.
The Peasant and the Fly, illustrated by Katherine Coville, Harcourt
(New York, NY), 1980.
Scrappy, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1983.
A Sky Full of Kites, Tricycle Press, 1996.
OTHER
(Editor and contributor) Best Plays from Stage (anthology), Dodd (New
York, NY), 1938.
Lenona.
Lenona
Not sure just how much the three overlap in content, since I'm in a
hurry, but they have different lengths.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/27/DD2T10SJEI.DTL
(article from May 2008)
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Osmond+Molarsky&pics=on&x=68&y=8
(a few covers)
Lenona.